Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.
Why you want to speak and what you want to be known for
Speaking takes 20 to 60 hours per conference talk once writing, rehearsal and travel are counted, so it needs a reason that survives a rejection email. Writing down the career outcome you want from it, such as a promotion to senior, a move into developer relations or recognition in a niche, and the one topic you want people to associate with your name, decides every later choice of event and abstract.
First tasks
- Write one sentence on what speaking should do for your career
- List three topics you could talk about for an hour without notes
- Pick the one topic you most want your name attached to
- Decide how many talks a year your workload can carry
Talk topic inventory from your own work
The best talk ideas are usually problems you have already solved at work: the migration that went wrong, the metric nobody trusted, the process you rebuilt. Combing the last two years of projects, incidents and design documents for stories with a lesson gives you a stock of ideas grounded in real experience, which is exactly what programme committees look for.
First tasks
- Scan your last two years of projects and incidents for stories with a lesson
- List each idea with its audience and a one-line takeaway
- Mark the five ideas with the strongest evidence behind them
- Give each shortlisted idea a working title
Employer clearance and confidentiality rules for public talks
Many employers have a policy on public speaking, external communications or open-source disclosure, and a talk that shows internal architecture, customer names or unreleased numbers can breach it. Finding the policy and agreeing what you may share before you submit protects your job and saves the embarrassment of withdrawing an accepted talk.
First tasks
- Search the staff handbook or intranet for a public speaking policy
- Ask your manager who needs to approve an external talk
- Write down what cannot be shared in public
- Note how many weeks before the event slides must be reviewed
- Recheck the policy in case it has changed @recurring(yearly)
